There were a few other musical happenings of noteworthy attention that summer of 91' that I've almost overlooked. First and foremost, Epileptic Brain Surgeons were gaining some steam, which landed them an opening spot for Canadian punk legends Day-Glo Abortions. The show was at The Spectrum club which was on the east end of the Danforth. Not exactly a hop, skip and a jump from the downtown core, but there was no way I was going to miss this. My only dilemma was I had no way to get there.
I ended up convincing an art class acquaintance named Jon to go. Jon was a big guy, somewhat on the nerdy side, who was always decked out in camo. He'd spend his weekends in Caledon hunting small game with his like minded friends. Jon was a fan of punk music, and he had a car, so I put two and two together and the next thing I knew we were going to the show.
The Spectrum was a decent sized venue, probably the biggest I'd seen E.B.S. perform in to date. This was also my first time seeing E.B.S. with Mike Chapman on bass I believe. It was surreal being in a crowd that large, moshing it up and singing along to my friends band. The crowd response was positive and the boys put on a kick ass show. I felt like a real big shot hanging out with the guys in the V.I.P. area beforehand and afterwards, even though a couple of them weren't really all there due to LSD consumption earlier in the evening. I kind of felt bad realizing I'd somewhat ditched Jon, so I found him and we slammed it up for Dayglos. All in all it was a great show and I felt like my friends were destined for greatness.
A flyer I made for the show while working at my co-op placement.
A few weeks later there was a massive metal event taking place at the CNE grandstand, it was called Clash of the Titans, and it boasted the biggest names in Thrash Metal. Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax with opening act Death Angel. Death Angel ended up having a terrible accident that almost took the life of their drummer Andy, so they had no choice but to drop off the bill, only to be replaced by an unknown band called Alice In Chains.
I was totally broke at the time and had absolutely no money to buy a ticket, but I still had a master plan to see the show. Since the CNE was an outdoor stadium, Jerry and I decided to head down and hang around the gates. We couldn't see the stage that great but we could hear the music, and that was all that really mattered. Apparently other people had the same idea as us, as there was a huge tailgate party going on in the parking lot. We befriended the strangers, had a few beers with them, and enjoyed the music.
After the show we hopped on the subway to head back to Yorkdale mall, where Jerry's truck was parked. The train was quiet and empty, so we sat in silence reminiscing the evenings events. About two stops in on our subway trip, the doors opened and a gang of rowdy concert goers piled in. Much to our surprise it was Noel, Shayne, and a bunch of the older thrasher guys. They were drunk, rowdy, and excitable from the show. Our quiet subway ride now had some action in the mix. They were all going to take the go bus from Yorkdale to Brampton, so Jerry offered them all a ride home. Thankfully his pickup truck had a cab on it to conceal the 8 or so guys dog piled in the bed of the truck.
We got everyone home in one piece, and Jerry had now solidified his spot in my other group of friends by doing them a solid deed. We managed to see a concert for free on top of that. It definitely set the standard for what was one kick ass summer...
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